


Love Yourself (To Death)

by Heronfem



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Chaos, Humor, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jaskier | Dandelion Being a Feral Bastard, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Murder, Murder of rapists and domestic abusers specifically, Oblivious Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Past Relationship(s), Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:47:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25916824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heronfem/pseuds/Heronfem
Summary: In his defense, Jaskier doesn’t really intend to become the most prolific serial killer on the continent, but there are a LOT of people who deserve killing and who is he to let them keep being terrible people instead of easily solving this problem? Honestly, he’s providing a valuable service to the continent.Noted and notable himbo Geralt of Rivia has no idea his boyfriend is a murderer, despite having helped him hide the bodies at least five times. Jaskier loves him very much.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 66
Kudos: 357





	Love Yourself (To Death)

**Author's Note:**

> Look if you didn't read the Jaskier is a serial killer note I don't know what to tell you.
> 
> Written almost exclusively to "I'm So Sorry" by Imagine Dragons.

The first person Jaskier kills, at the delicate age of 16, is his own father. He does so in the evening after everyone is in bed, casually strolling into his bedroom and strangling him with a garotting cord made from one of his lute strings, and then heading back to bed. He sleeps like a baby.

It took very little effort, and frankly, his father had it coming. 

In the morning, the late and entirely unmourned Viscount Jorgan de Lettenhove is tossed bodily onto a pyre, and Jaskier’s brother Lorenz ascends to become the new viscount to a room full of quietly approving villagers all carefully not meeting each other’s eyes. Jaskier waves merrily as he waltzes out the door following the ceremony, bags already packed, and has an absolute spring in his step all the way to Oxenfurt. 

The thing is, at that point Jaskier has no intention of killing another person as long as he lives. His father was an absolute bastard, cruel to his children and people, and had to die, but Jaskier is mostly ambivalent about the rest of humanity on the whole. He thinks they’re probably fine. Besides, if he hadn’t done it, one of his siblings would have, and probably botched the whole affair. None of them have any appreciation for the amount of hand strength it takes to kill a man, honestly. 

He keeps this perspective until he meet Professor Donateo of Sodden, who thinks it’s a grand idea to leer at the female students and gets a bit too handsy with one of Jaskier’s friends. 

And then, suddenly, Jaskier finds himself humming cheerfully as he puts together a concoction of cyanide and sage, which Donateo is horribly allergic to, and slipping it into his evening gravy. 

It’s a very unfortunate death, very unexpected, such a pity of course, but no one actually gives a shit about it because all the girls are too busy being thrilled he’s dead and the professors are all scrambling for a new Cultural Perspectives on the Conjunction In Modern Writing professor (god University is _great_ ), and the boys are all just happy that this asshole has stopped giving the home team a bad name. Jaskier is quietly smug, and gets on with his homework. He has more important things than Donateo of Sodden to think about, like beating Valdo Marx in the rankings this week.

In his third year he hears word of a corrupt guardsman taking advantage of his position and attacking women and men alike, and that becomes his new project. It takes him about a week of flirting to get the guy interested and then just drugs him with poppy in his glass and tosses him in the river to drown. Problem solved! And he didn’t even have to get his hands dirty, so that’s a pretty great night. 

He thinks about killing Valdo Marx a lot, but he decides that really every good bard needs a solid rival, so Valdo gets to live. 

Jaskier gets his full mastery certification younger than most, and is full of excitement as he packs his trusty lute, uses some of his stipend from his lovely brother Lorenz to buy gear, and strikes off to become a traveling bard. He’s bubbling over with excitement from the first day that he steps out the door from his rooms at Oxenfurt, officially off and on his own. He wants to see the world! He wants to learn all the things that his teachers wouldn’t tell him about! He wants to know it all! 

As it turns out, people kind of suck. Jaskier loves people, he truly does, but they suck. He wanders town to town, getting experience and then wandering off again. It’s a good learning experience. He wanders all the way to Posada like that, bored and curious and wondering about life.

And that’s when he meets Geralt of Rivia. 

It takes all of five seconds for Jaskier to fall head over heels for him. Probably closer to 2.5, actually, he probably broke a speed record or eight. He falls in love and decides with one look at that tired and frustrated scowl that he’s going to attach himself wholeheartedly to this hulking wonder of a man and kill anyone who stands in his way. 

Well, maybe. He’s only killed three people. Geralt, as his new beloved is named, has probably killed a lot more than three and can probably take care of himself. 

Except, Jaskier learns very quickly, he can’t. 

Jaskier meets Filavandrel, acquires an absolute masterpiece of a lute, and decides he’s going to take up correspondence with the elves to do his absolute fucking best to get some of them to send him chord progressions because he’s heard GREAT things and wants them, badly. On the way out he also grabs a couple descriptions of people who’ve been especially shitty to them, because really, one good turn deserves another, and while Geralt’s handling the townsfolk Jaskier quietly drowns one, drunk and wobbling, in the horse trough behind the tavern stables. The other is even easier, just a casual bump down the stairs helped with a rock to the head. 

They get out of town, and Jaskier has quite the bounce in his step. His new song went over very well, and he’s sure that the townsfolk will be very nice to Witchers in the future. He’s going to be very nice to Witchers in the future, too, because Geralt is great and Jaskier already adores him, and other Witchers are a part of Geralt’s community and therefore important to be nice too. 

Lorenz once said he was very possessive. Jaskier thinks he was probably over exaggerating. Lorenz is nervy like that. 

“So!” Jaskier says brightly. “Which way are you going?” 

Geralt gives him a long look from on top of Roach, and Jaskier beams at him. This is going to be _fun_. 

“South,” Geralt says at last. “Pretty sure if I leave you alone you’ll be dead in a week, so you might as well stay for a while.” 

Awwww, he’s so sweet! Jaskier’s heart does cartwheels. 

“Sounds good to me!” 

And that’s the start of it, really, because Jaskier doesn’t like rude people and likes rude people insulting the people he’s decided belong to him even less. Filavandrel gave him a _gift_ , and Jaskier has every intention of honoring it by keeping their secrets hidden. He starts slipping pro-elf sentiment into his songs, and watches with absolute fascination as people drink it up. He writes songs about Geralt’s exploits as a Witcher, and people go wild for them. They do love a good horror story, and Jaskier is very good at horror stories with thrilling happy endings, even if the Witcher involved is taciturn and grumpy and on occasion very funny. 

Gods, Jaskier loves him so much. 

Jaskier loves lots of people, actually, quite a lot, and often in dangerous ways. He has a particular fondness for the unhappily married wives of ugly or nasty men, because, well. They are very, very easy to please, and he likes pleasing people, and sometimes when they tell him about their terrible no good husbands he takes the time to fix the name in his mind as a problem to be solved. 

He’s not stupid. Oh no. Jaskier is smart, thank you, and so he will fix a name in his head until he and Geralt have parted in the fall, and then Jaskier might make a loop around from two towns over and the terrible husband will have an unfortunate incident befall him. Jaskier likes to drown them in troughs while they’re drunk, most of the time, because it’s a simple solution and takes very little effort. Get them drunk enough and they’ll do the job for you! It’s great! 

He does have to get inventive sometimes, but he’s a very inventive man. And Jaskier likes puzzles, likes setting his brain to the task of working things out that killing requires. It’s fun! He likes fun. 

By the time he’s 27 and has both a professor’s position at Oxenfurt and a very large repertoire of his own work floating around the continent, he’s honestly mostly lost track of the number of dead people in his wake. He’s relatively certain it’s in the low 50’s, but really, who’s counting? Not Jaskier, that’s for sure. Oxenfurt is never safer for the students when he’s there, and if there are rumors floating around about a vigilante that kills rapists, well, all the better! Any would be rapists will hopefully think twice, and if they don’t, Jaskier has ample time to hunt them down and see them wind up floating in the Pontar, or in a horse trough, or just stabbed in the throat. So many people get gambling debts in Oxenfurt, it’s truly tragic to see. 

Geralt comes to find him that year, and Jaskier gleefully throws on his good boots and takes off into the unknown with him and Roach, having the absolute time of his life. Thankfully Geralt was nice enough to wait until after he finished grading finals. 

Geralt’s sweet when he wants to be. 

They carve a nice little swath across Temeria, and Jaskier only kills two people their entire traveling season together. It’s pretty quiet, aside from the bruxaes and banshees and leshens and the fifty goddamn nekkers that always seem to be way too close to their camp. They break apart for a short time so Jaskier can go compete in a song competition. They make plans to meet up in or near a town in the general area of where Geralt’s planning to be contract hunting for the next few months, and Jaskier heads back down the road with a spring in his step a month later to arrive just in time to see a man beating his wife. 

Well. 

He has a bit of time before he needs to meet Geralt anyway. 

It’s an easy kill, all he does is wait in the garden with one of his worn out steel strings wrapped around his hands until the bastard leaves to go use the outhouse, and then wraps his garotte around the neck and _squeezes_. The man drops with very little fuss and Jaskier hefts him on his shoulders to go haul him off to be disposed of off the side of a bridge on the way out of town. The man is annoyingly heavy but it’s a nice night, and Jaskier takes his time setting the body down and resting before picking it back up. It’s during one of these rest stops that he hears a familiar clomp off boots and creak of armor, and he looks down the road to find Geralt stalking along in the moonlight.

Geralt’s eyes are still blown black from his hunt, which is just painfully hot, and he doesn’t look all that put together. Jaskier’s relatively certain he is, in fact, high as a kite. 

“Geralt! What a nice surprise. Here, help me with this, will you?” 

Geralt blinks at him and looks down at the body Jaskier’s been hauling along. “What’s this?” 

“Annoyingly heavy, that’s what,” Jaskier says brightly. “I’m going to throw it in the bog.” 

“Oh.” Geralt nods, as if this is completely normal, and Jaskier wants to coo at him. He scoops up the body like it’s nothing, and Jaskier follows him to the bridge, where they casually tip it over and the body thumps heavily into the damp. Geralt blinks down at it, clearly still hazy from whatever mess of potions he drank. “Should I be worried?” 

“Oh, probably not,” Jaskier says, and steps in to wipe some blood off of his face. “You’re filthy, we should get you cleaned up! Come on, before you get lost in the dark or something.” 

“I have an excellent sense of direction.”

“Yes, of course,” Jaskier agrees easily, and grabs his hand to drag him to their tavern, where the barmaid takes one look at Geralt and decides that yes, actually, she will pull the biggest bath they have and they’re welcome to it. 

Jaskier likes her. Sensible children will go far in the world. 

Her father on the other hand… but Jaskier has already killed one person tonight and really he just wants to get Geralt cleaned up right now. Geralt allows himself to be herded to their rooms and dunked in the bath, and damn. Damn, Jaskier has it bad. The black eyes and spidery veins and the way Geralt's yawn shows off his massive teeth is so painfully appealing, and he just helped him with a body, so- 

"Hey, Geralt?" He asks casually as Geralt climbs out of the bath. "Wanna fuck?"

Geralt jolts, nearly falling, and his still black eyes flick up to meet Jaskier's. Before Jaskier can even breathe Geralt is there in front of him, hands up as if waiting to touch.

"Please," he growls and. Oh damn. That's really working for both of them.

“Oh, fuck,” Jaskier breathes, and yanks him down hard to his mouth in delighted greed. “ _Finally_.” 

They’re all desperate hands and Jaskier shoves him hard back into the bed, Geralt falling with his eyes blown wide with surprise and lust. Jaskier grins at him, dragging his shirt off and tossing it away before throwing a leg over him and fisting a hand in his hair. The noise Geralt makes is _delicious_. 

“When’s the last time you were with a man?” Jaskier asks as he casually pulls his belt off. Geralt’s eyes bloom to near full black, cat slits gone wide. 

“60 years, give or take.” 

Jaskier pauses, and beams down at him. “Oh, sweetheart, I am going to _wreck_ you,” he promises fervently, and Geralt grabs him and drags him down for another kiss. 

He does, in fact, rock Geralt’s entire fucking world and even manages to convince him to take a bit of White Honey to help with the come down, and Geralt falls to pieces under his attentions, which is the hottest and most ego boosting thing that has ever happened to Jaskier in his entire life. He wants it to continue to happen for possibly the entire rest of time, thank you very much. 

“Well,” Jaskier says brightly, “that was fun.” 

He pats Geralt’s chest as he sits up, humming pleasantly. Geralt watches him with a somewhat poleaxed expression, and Jaskier grins down at him. 

“And now,” he says smugly, leaning down to hover just over his mouth, “you get to spend allll winter thinking about how you’re going to miss me.” 

He catches Geralt’s mouth in the filthiest kiss he’s ever managed and pops out of bed to get dressed while Geralt makes a strangled noise behind him. 

Gods, Jaskier’s life is so fucking good right now.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, cheery serial murderer Jaskier is a gift and a delight and I love him.
> 
> \---  
> Comments bring me great and abiding joy! Life is stressful, comments are free! Please feed your local starving author, they're doing their best. You can find me as Heronfem or kaer-cuan on tumblr, HeronVinn on twitter. Art and podfics welcome!


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